The Giants weren t just 8 1/2 games in front of the Dodgers on June 5. They d played the most road games of any team in baseball, and they were entering a stretch where they would play 20 of their next 25 games at the friendly confines of AT&T Park, including a 10-game homestand to complete their most favorable period of the schedule for the entire 2014 season.

Talk about driver s seat. The Giants were riding in a orange-and-black Ferrari with the top down, the gearshift in overdrive and the competition a mere speck in the rearview mirror. The Giants had a golden chance to speed away and hide in the National League West and virtually assure themselves a spot in the postseason by simply playing solidly, if not spectacularly. When they swept the Mets in a weekend series to start out this 20 of 25 stretch at home, all things seemed possible, maybe even a run at the all-time franchise record for wins (106, in 1904).

So what the hell happened? The unthinkable, that s what. Meltdown. Train wreck. Gag-O-Rama. Call it what you want. The Giants have gone 5-17 since that Mets sweep, 3-14 at home, and 2-8 for the long, closing homestand that mercifully ended with Thursday s 7-2 face-plant to the Cardinals. They finished formidably, too — 11 straight outs to wrap it all up.
Wow, this thing has really gone off the road, hasn’t it. Now the Giants are behind the wheel of a rusted-out 85 Yugo, hoping that fourth tire doesn t blow. Not much more could go wrong during this stretch, eh? They played that skull-crushing three-game series when they blew three leads against the Colorado Rockies after the seventh inning. They got swept for the first time ever in a four-game series at AT&T by Cincinnati. They were shut out three times in nine days. And over the course of just 21 games, they let a 9 1/2 lead in the N.L. West evaporate.

Um, maybe it s time to get out of town for awhile?

Guess what? The Giants will be doing that a lot the rest of the way, and that s the really unfortunate upshot of this very bad stumble. Winning the division and/or making the playoffs is going to be a stiff enough challenge over the final 77 games, but it ll be even harder now considering the Giants coughed, choked and sputtered through a section of the home schedule in which they should have reaped significant rewards.

As Bruce Bochy said afterward, “Our margin of error is not there anymore. Now we’ve got to play good baseball.”

Perhaps superior baseball, in fact, and here’s why: Of the team s final 77 games, 44 will be on the road. Immediately after the All-Break, they have a killer period in which they play 17 of 23 away from home, and not just one East Coast swing, but two. Playing like they have been the past three weeks, that will surely finish them for the year and we can start sizing up the 49ers.

Considering the way the Giants played at AT&T Park, perhaps a rough road schedule is a good thing. Maybe they have trouble with sellout crowds. Maybe they prefer the echoes of most other stadiums around the National League (and they’ll start hearing ’em Friday night in San Diego). Maybe they’re just better suited — at least to hit — away from their foreboding home park. They hit .192 on this homestand (.140 with RISP) with two homers in 10 games. They hardly made up for it with speed — one stolen base. Pretty tough to score when you’re neither hitting nor running.

There’s only one positive thing that can be said right now. The Giants, for all this cataclysm, are still right there. They still have time to reverse this. How, who knows? Maybe Brandon Belt will have some answers when he returns Friday night in San Diego. But however it’s done, the odds still favor the Giants, too. Look, five teams are going to make the playoffs in the National League, and realistically, there are only eight teams worthy of consideration — Atlanta, Washington, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Maybe the Giants can’t hang with the Dodgers the way L.A. is pitching right now, but those N.L. Central teams are going to be beating each other up in the second half. As long as the Giants take care of their own business — and again, that will be tough with so many road games — they can still overcome this. They might have to r

Optimism isn’t very high right now, which is understandable. But if this slide had to happen, better now than in August. Because they have played so poorly at home, the Giants have to hope they can continue their impressive road clip to date (22-15), which would net them 48 road wins. That means they would only have to finish 42-39 at AT&T to get to 90 wins — just .500 ball, fellas — although taking advantage of your sellout fan base might be more advisable in a perfect baseball world.

That hasn’t happened, and now it’s going to be a claw and scratch and fret and sweat fight to the finish. It shouldn’t have been this way, but that’s the reality of the situation now. And the truth isn’t pretty.

The post POSTGAME NOTES: After squandering comforts of home, it now becomes a tough road — literally appeared first on Giants Extra.

The dispute stems from different interpretations of the team’s 20-year lease agreement. The Warriors argue the team has no obligation to pay an estimated $40 million remaining debt for renovations to the arena once it departs for San Francisco next year, while Coliseum authority officials insists the team must cover the costs in full.